Pale Heart (Looking for critique)
WIP. I'm new at this and bad at coding, so bare with me Pale Heart is one of my favorite pony fan characters, and my only alicorn character. Despite the controversy of alicorns, I still love Pale Heart dearly and display him confidently, knowing the bad reception I may recieve. He is one of my most developed characters, but I'm still developing him. Eventually, he will have a story, once I feel he isn't a sue. Go ahead and give feedback, advice, or critique on him, I don't mind at all. That why I made this page for him, so people can look over him and throw in their two cents. Thank you to those who look over this. I've probably spelled some things wrong in this, so feel free to point those out Development Pale Heart was concieved about a year ago and has been constantly changing since. There are things that have been kept the same from the beginning, though. He's always been an alicorn, he's always been pale, and he's always been tall and slender. What has changed the most is both the concept of his character and his backstory. He was based off of the Slenderman Mythos. In fact, he started out as my interpretation of Slendermane, who I thought would be best represented as an alicorn. But I couldn't claim Slendermane as my character, of course, so he was just a character to play around with in my head. Back then, he used to be a normal pony that became Slendermane after consumed by utter grief. But since he used to be a normal pony, I had to give him a name. The first thing that came to mind was "Pale Heart." It stuck. But after a while Slendermane and Pale Heart became their own seperate entities. Slendermane sort of faded away from my attention, since, like I said, I couldn't make him my character. But I had Pale Heart. He wasn't connected to black magic back then, so no spots. Since the dawn of time, Pale Heart had a love interest that he lost, that pushed him into madness. While this was okay, there was still one loose thread: If he's not Slendermane, why is he still an alicorn? It used to be that he was just born that way, due to an eldritch force influencing his future. But that just brought up the question, "Why did the force chose him?" And back then Pale Heart just walked around Ponyville like it was normal, and nobody minded he was an alicorn. So I had to fix that. So, indeed, an eldritch force made him an alicorn, but not randomly, like it was before, and not without purpose. This time it's because his parents handed him over to said force. So, now Pale Heart has no connection to the Slenderman Mythos, has an explanation as to why he's an alicorn, and doesn't walk around Ponyville like it's normal. Pale Heart also went through qutie a few design variations to get to how he looks today. First design he had: He was a tall, slender alicorn who was pure white with a dull reddish mane that was messy and sort of long. His Cutie Mark was similar to G3 Sweetie Belle's Second design: Similar to the first, but with a gray mane that was darker in color than his body. Cuite Mark had a big red heart in the middle, with two tiny ones at the sides. Mane was very long. Third: Almost identical to the second, except the Cutie Mark now resembles his current one. Considerably shorter mane, but still rather long in length. Fourth: This one is the most similar to his current one. Still, tall and slender, but has gained some dark magic induced markings, and his Cutie Mark is the same as his current one. Only difference is that his legs also had markings. Mane is now that dull reddish color again, just slightly darker. Mane's lenght is now more reasonable, shorter like his curent mane. In this version, Pale Heart would sometimes put his mane up to resemble the way people tie up the manes of draft horses. Gained the gray rims under his eyes. Fifth: Current design. The only markings he has now are on his wings, the right side of his face, and his horn. No more leg markings. Mane is shorter, and is sometimes tied up , but not often. Eyes still have gray rims under them. Summary Pale Heart's mother was Fading Daylight, a pegaus with a dull sky blue coat, and his father Coal Heart, a strong built stallion with a dark gray coat. Coal's special talent, was, predictably, mining coal, and Daylight's was adding a gentle touch to the sky. Making sure the colors weren't too vivid in the wrong area or time of day, creating soft, fluffy clouds, the like. While Coal was a rugged, blunt chatter box who always had some harsh opinion to share, Daylight was a shy, quiet and unfriendly mare. Coal never kept any of his thoughts to himself, and shared them no matter how rude, but Daylight kept her jabbing, insulting observations to herself. They were opposites in a way, but they bonded over some shared opinions. Now, the two ponies grew very unhappy with their lives. Daylight wasn't a very strong or fast flier, she was good at carefully crafting details that were easy to miss. It was the louder, boustrous pegasi that always held the spotlight. And Coal, spending most of his time underground, grew lonely and tired of spending his days doing hard work in the dark. In their minds, Equestrian society only view pegasi as valuable only if they're good at flying fast, and all earth ponies are good for are doing hard work all their lives. But unicorns, unicorns could be anything they wanted to be. They didn't have to waste their life away working in fields, or base their whole world over the fact they have wings, unicorns could study to be anything they wanted. And while this wasn't true, the two ponies were too bitter and jealous to see any other view. When they heard the story of a common unicorn ascending to alicorn-dom, they were furiously envious. They vowed to abandon their older lives, so they could become something greater. It was at this point they became very interested in the illegal practices of black magic. Now, they couldn't preform any spells by themselves, so they recieved help from a "sympathetic" unicorn who heard of their plight. Normally, neither Coal nor Daylight would trust a unicorn, but this particular pony was very skilled in black magic and willing to teach them, so they had no better alternatives. At first, they tried asking the pony, who claimed he was named "Umbra", to give them horns, but Umbra denied them every time, telling them he had a "better" idea. Umbra told them that he could give them an alicorn son. Now, Daylight was already pregnant with a pony who would have been born a pegasus, if the circumstances of this pony's birth was normal, but Umbra announced he could turn their pegasus son into an alicorn, using black magic. Not knowing what the two were getting themselves into, they agreed to Umbra's offer. Thus was born Pale Heart. He was born with a pale off white coat, and a pale red-ish mane. Hence why his first name is Pale, and his last name is Heart like his father's was. Also, he was born with some dark red eyes. Since Pale Heart was going to be born a pegasus, he had no magic of his own, so Umbra gave Pale his magic. This is a problem, since no pony is naturally born with black magic. Unicorns are always born with the same, basic type of magic and black magic has to be learned. So, Pale Heart's magic doesn't cooperate with normal spells, and barely preforms even black magic spells. There was one little thing Umbra "forgot" to mention, he was actually an ancient spirit, capable of possesing ponies. Now, while Umbra didn't directly posses Pale Heart, yet, he sort of claimed him by giving Pale his magic. So, the magic Pale Heart was given isn't his own, but still cooperates with Umbra. While Umbra claimed he was helping Coal and Daylight, he actually was using them to give him an alicorn host to posses once it becomes fully grown. But Pale Heart's parents were perfectly fooled during his younger years, but they began to realize they had no idea what to do with an alicorn son. They tried to ask Umbra for guidence, but it seemed he had disappeared, but instead Umbra was watching closely from a distance. So Daylight and Coal were alone on this, and beginning to realize they took on something they couldn't deal with. Well, besides having wings, Pale didn't seem too strange from ages one to eight. But there was something that made his parents feel like they were cheated, Pale Heart didn't have any magic surges. Instead, he behaived in infancy like any other pegasus baby would, he would have moments of increased flight ability. For most of his childhood, Pale Heart was raised in the Everfree Forest. This was convenient for Pale and his parents, because it was a private place where Pale could stretch his wings without fear of someone looking. When Pale Heart was old enough to go to school, his parents actually did send him off to school. It was hard to conceal his horn, so they gave Pale Heart a loose sweater everyday, and told him never to take it off. And if anypony asked, his parents told Pale to say, "I get cold easy, so I wear a sweater." This was rather eye brow raising to Pale's peers, considering he had to wear that sweater every day, including during the summer. At school, he was known as a skittish blank flank. Pale Heart did know how to fly, but he couldn't show any of his peers, and his parents didn't seem very impressed with him learning to fly early, for reasons Pale didn't understand. Other than that, he was late to earn his Cutie Mark and late to learn how to use his magic. This frustrated Daylight and Coal, and their trust in dark magic slipped away entirely, and they wished they had just stuck to their previous lives. The reason that Pale Heart's wasn't learning magic yet was because his magic had to be activated. Umbra's magic laid dormant in him for most of his childhood, and Pale Heart couldn't awaken what wasn't his by himself. What was necessary to spark Umbra's magic awake was fear. Not just that uncomfortable feeling you get when you alone at night, but all out, heart skipping panic. Pale Heart needed a real bad scare, and when you're a colt late to earn your Cutie Mark, ponies like to play some pranks on you. Like I said, Pale Heart had a reputation for being skittish. His parents had made it very clear that it should never be revealed that he had wings, and gave enough reasons why to take this very seriously. So Pale Heart was always nervous and paranoid, and was even a bit afraid to get close to some ponies. This made him an easy target, and some ponies took the opportunity to poke fun at Pale Heart. The day he finally earned his Cutie Mark was rather rough for Pale Heart, to say the least. It started out normally, just a standard day at school. Well, that changed when a prankster foal snuck up behind Pale Heart and decided it would be funny to give him a good scare. If Pale Heart was just a normal pony, this would have just gave him a rather bad startle. But it wasn't just that he was startled that set him into a panic, it was the fact that at the moment he sensed something entirely new in him. Umbra's black magic activated at that moment, and Pale Heart couldn't contain it. He impulsively shot a lightning bolt out the roof. Pale Heart then saw everything how Umbra wanted him to see it. It was like the world was covered over a red film, every voice thundered frighteningly loud and the world shuddered so badly that Pale Heart could hardly keep his balance. Disoriented and scared, Pale Heart ran out of the school, screaming at the horrible things he percieved. Though Umbra tried to take control of Pale Heart's mind through fear, Pale Heart still kept his identity and innocence by reminding himself of the things that calms him down. Though the battle in his mind between himself and Umbra was long and exhausting, Pale Heart pulled through, which earned him his Cutie Mark: What looks like blood smeared in the shape of a cartoon heart. After his parents found him, shivering and hiding some where away from his school, they pulled him out of his school after they heard what happened and educated him at home. Pale Heart had won the battle, but not the war. Umbra's magic was now awake, and continues to try to take over Pale Heart's mind today. This was when Pale Heart started accumulating his spots. They're sort of like magic induced bruises, except perminent. They make the skin tougher, but the body sickly and weaker. Pale Heart has little control of his magic. Although the secrets of black magic aren't available of the normal populace, Pale Heart seems to have dark magic of a completely foriegn, undocumented type. Since Pale's magic is basically owned by Umbra's, let just say Umbra is a rather.. Otherworldy spirit, which will be explained better when I get his character page up. Right now, Umbra isn't working directly in Pale Heart, only a piece of his magic is. And it's alive and borderline sentient, violent, unpredictable, and activates and deactivates when it pleases. This magic completely terrified his parents, and it soon became evident that they couldn't train or control his magic. It was destructive and dangerous, and though it wasn't Pale Heart's fault, Daylight and Coal became increasingly distant and afraid of their son. They kept him isolated, and tried everything they could, from normal spells, to dark magic spells to learn what Pale Heart was going through, but nothing seemed to help. When Pale Heart became an adolescent, capable of taking care of himself, his parents left him and went into hiding, somewhere they hope their son won't find them. At least they stuck around until he grew up. So like I said, Pale Heart's magic is dangerous. It causes problems, it has been destructive, and yet Pale Heart's wish isn't "I want my magic to be normal". He actually wouldn't have it different, he just wished it would cooperate with him. Call it determination, or the influence of the dark magic, but Pale Heart is absolutely obsessed with training what he was born with. But not only does his magic damage things around him, it damages Pale himself. The magic is doing whatever it can to devour Pale Heart's mind, and Pale Heart is constantly trying to control his magic. The two are continually at war and it's taking his toll on Pale Heart. He has gotten more and more spots, a sign the magic is spreading and growing more powerful within him. This is making him rather sickly, but the obsession continues. He believes that if he finds out how to control his magic, he can do good with it. However, dark magic is, by default, destructive. Instead of persuing ways to get rid of his magic (which may or may not be possible), Pale Heart is trying to control something that wants to weaponize him. But besides his ridiculously unusual backstory, Pale Heart isn't too unusual in personality. At least, he doesn't think so. Most of his time is spent in his old home in the Everfree Forest, studying and training his magic without much progress, but he can't stay there forever. He has to walk into Equestria for supplies, and he has to interact with someone to keep his sanity. So, like his parents did before, he hides his wings with a rather conspicious cloak and visits shops in Equestria during times where it's not so busy. With his spots and taller build, he stands out like a sore thumb, and this causes a lot of stress for him, so he doesn't go to Ponyville often. I bet you're wondering what his Cutie Mark means? It's keeping hope and love in times of hurt, he can brings others to see good in times of tragedy. It also means that no matter what, he will fight to keep his identity even though things are working against him. This isn't something that will get him an occupation though, so he is rather poor and has to rely on the allies he slowly gained for help. Since he was isolated as a child, he's rather awkward in conversations with most ponies, but he gets along mosts with intellectuals and oddballs like him. He's still paranoid and has lots of anxiety and trust issues, so he doesn't really like meeting strangers. But to those he does manage to get close to, he can be very trusting and open, which is either his downfall or the opposite. For reasons not even he can understand, Pale Heart has a fear of animals. To wrap this summary up, he has none of the stength of an earth pony. If he had practiced his flight abilities more as a child, he could have been pretty skilled, but since his parents sort of restricted that, he's rather average. He's more of a magic inclined pony, or he would be, if he could figure out anything. Personality Pale Heart is passive and clam by nature. In conversations, he's a good listener, only interrupting his train of thought to reply when needed. If you're looking for someone to joke and laugh with, Pale Heart might not be the best candidate. Outwardly, Pale Heart may appear super serious, as he rarely jokes, and usually remains quiet, even in the prescense of others. Truthfully, Pale Heart doesn't think he's rather good at cracking jokes and prefers not to try, since he thinks it's rather embarassing to tell a joke without even a laugh in reply. Though he may seem humorless, he does try to show polite appreciation for jokes, good or bad. If you don't know him well, Pale Heart might appear like he's never happy, but by default, he smiles whenever he's talking to someone, regardless of his actual mood. It's just an impulse of his. Pale Heart has a rather logical mind that tends to see things as how they are outwardly, instead of seeing depth in it. For example, many people see shapes in the clouds, but to Pale Heart, they're just clouds. He takes things literally, and doesn't interpret things very much. That doesn't mean he's jaded or not easily impressed, he just has a very basic view of the world around him. With the help of others, he can be taugh to see the things he couldn't before, like shapes in the clouds, but by default, he doesn't think in that sort of way. However, this does not mean he is not thoughtful, he just uses his interpretive abilities to understand the minds of ponies around him. Pale Heart, as mentioned before, was isolated for most of his childhood, so he isn't quite caught up with what most ponies are interested in or how they think. So if a pony reacts to him in a way he didn't quite understand, he reviews the situation in his mind and comes to his own conclusion as to way they acted that way. This process is, of course, not always accurate, it's more of a trail and error type deal. He has to do this many times because he doesn't have enough time to truly analyze the ponies around him, since Pale's main focus is training his magic. In short, Pale Heart has a very mild personality that rarely shows any extremes in normal circumstances, except stress. Whether he's feeling good or not just seems to depend from day to day. Sometimes he's a smiley pony with a slightly positive viewpoint, or sometimes a pony who looks a little down. But this never comes off as a complete personality change, as no matter what he still retains his calmness and neither his happiness nor sadness reach their full potential. Most of his anxiety stems from his parents pressuring him into never revealing his an alicorn, and Pale Heart is very uncomfortable around strangers, especially while in crowds. Even when alone in his house, Pale Heart never removes his cloak to stretch his wings around, due to unreasonable paranoia. In fact, he's grown a slight dislike for his wings, due to his parent's coditioning him to. Because of this, he rarely uses his wings and prefers to walk to his destination, even if flying there would be faster. It's not that he doesn't like being an alicorn, he just hates how he has to hide it. The main reason why he's so obsessed with training his magic is his lack of ability to accept there is something evil living inside him that he can't control. When involved with his black magic, there seems to be a bit of personality change in him. Along with extreme focus, Pale Heart gains a very serious attitude and a slight ego that gives one the impression he isn't feeling himself. In fact, he might seem like a completely different person. This is the fault of both his black magic and his default personality. When studying something, he tends to adopt a more serious personality and start to become a little boastful about the things he's discovered, though when involved with black magic, this is more extreme. Pale Heart studies his black magic for the majority of his day, including well into the night. He doesn't get very much sleep because of this bad habit, and has gotten some bags under his eyes for it. Pale Heart can be very intelligent, if he puts his mind to it. He has a vast knowledge of black magic, and has a strong memory with a dedicated focus. While his awareness of black magic is because of constant studying, Pale Heart can remember minor details and facts rather well. But for the most part, he just seems to be of average intelligence when it comes to the things he hasn't really taken any look into. If there's any particular subject he has trouble understanding, it would be science. Magical formulas: Makes sense. Scientific formulas: Nope. Black magic It's best to consider the piece of Umbra's black magic as a seperate entity from Pale Heart, with a personality and a mind of it's own. This said, Pale Heart is rarely ever in control of this black magic, and when he is, chances are Pale's doing exactly what the black magic wants him to. Pale Heart and his magic rarely cooperate, as they are almost always battling each other. The black magic seems very rebellous and malevolent in nature, but only actively towards Pale Heart. It cares not for anypony else or their well being, and only destroys when it hurts or weakens Pale Heart in some way. This requires the magic to be unpredictable, and in turn, unpreventable. If you can't see what it will do next, you can't stop the black magic's next move. It's difficult to talk about the specific spells of this black magic, because of it's seemingly varriying nature. The only constant seems to be destruction, instead of darkness. In fact, some of it's spells are light producing, like crackles of electricity or even lightning. This black magic glows an omnious red, fitingly so since some of it's spells are fire producing, like the lightning. What makes the black magic so unpredictable is it's refusual to activate on command, and it's ability to activate at virtually any time, especially if Pale Heart is stressed, scared, or sad. Pale Heart will experience "black magic surges" where his magic spirals out of control when feeling intense negative emotions. This surges may last from one second in mild cases, to even an hour if Pale Heart is in enough panic. Sadness creates more mild magic surges, stress can create more powerful ones, and fear can create ones of extreme intenstity. Whenever he has a magic surge, the emotion he was feeling at the time will be multiplied. In rarer cases, Pale Heart may experience a magic surge when he is in a manic state of happiness. Which brings me to my next point, the effect the black magic has on Pale Heart's mental stablity. The black magic doesn't have just offensive spells, it has ones that effect the mind. Pale Heart will experience magical hallucinations when trying to practice his black magic for long periods of time or with extreme delligence. The exact nature of the hallucinations aren't always terrifying, sometimes they seem perfectly fine in the mind of Pale Heart, and serve him to ease him into accepting the black magic's influence. These hallucinations are like dreams, they make sense at the time, but by the time you wake up you realize just how non-sensical they are. But while experiencing one, the most fear inducing ones could feel like the world has been torn to pieces and thrown into flames. They're very vivid, rarely linear and confusing. Sometimes they even cause amnesia, due to the fact that the mind can't comprehend what it had just seen. Also, may cause nausea due to stress overload, and headaches. This isn't limited to Pale Heart alone. If Pale Heart is experiencing negative emotions, and someone's around, they may suddenly feel emotions similar to him without knowing why. Depending on the intensity of his emotion, this feeling may subtly creep into the victim's mind or tear right into their minds, causing a jarring, potentially panic inducing feeling. It's like a sickness. Ponies around him catch the emotion he's feeling, and after a day it goes away after the sickness runs it's cycle. It never has a permanent effect on victims, but it may affect them for a little while. This is completely involuntary on Pale Heart's part, and his only way to stop it is to try to force his mood to turn positive. However, the black magic wants him to have this effect on ponies. It wants him to willingly use this ability, and inflict hallucinations onto ponies like the ones Pale Heart has experienced. Of course, the magic doesn't outright state this, but it tries to push him into doing this with hallucinations, to alter his state of mind. This would put him in a state of submission, and doing the will of the black magic would make Pale Heart finally ready to be Umbra's host. However, Pale Heart doesn't like harming other ponies, but he does use this ability in "desperate times", which causes him and Umbra to have a stronger connection, giving Umbra the freedom to communicate to Pale through dreams. Another effect the black magic has on Pale Heart if he tries to practice it too long is personality changes. It causes his mostly calm personality to become more intense and irritable. His emotions become confused, and Pale Heart stops thinking things through properly. In this state of mind, Pale Heart may experience paranoid delusions and irrational thoughts that race through his head uncontrollably. In more mild cases, Pale Heart might feel "empty", depressed or "dead inside." This is partially because of the black magic corrupting him physically. Pale Heart would describe the corrupted pieces of skin as feeling thick and heavy, and he's also mostly numb in those areas. Another paranoid delusion of his, Pale Heart has moments where he feels he died along time ago. Depending on his mood, this might make him depressed or give him a feeling of immortality and strength. During these times when the black magic upsets the organization of his mind, Pale Heart might experience unexplainable pain that mostly come in the form of headaches. Due to his racing thoughts, Pale will break into rants that consist of mostly cryptic sentences that range from seemingly meaningless, to a unsuccessful attempt at trying to communicate understandably. These rants are manic in nature, either expressing distress or a feeling of extreme strength and superiority. These thoughts and words are not Pale Heart's alone, but of Umbra's. It's his attempt at introducing Pale Heart to his language. When Pale Heart isn't concentrating, he may find himself writing a series of strange symbols he can't understand. "Theme song" "Cool breeze over my skin Floating above the ground A sight I've never seen And there's no one to make a sound" Chinter's Will by Klaypex, ft. Sara Kay "I see the bright blue sky Through the clear ocean water The '''darkness '''is disguised Behind the perfect clutter" Explanation Why he's a male alicorn; I assume cannonically in the show, there are no male alicorns. Shining Armor, Blue Blood and Sombra surely prove this. While I've considered making Pale Heart a mare, I decided it would make him too similar to the alicorns of the show in a way, and that making him a stallion gives him a "artificially created" vibe. Why not remove his wings?; This would remove Umbra's motivation for making Pale Heart an alicorn in the first place. Otherwise, I would. About RPs; If he was in a RP, I would remove either his wings or horn. In either scenarios, his magic would either be removed entirely or made normal to help him fit it. It would just depend on the plot of the RP that decides whether or not I'd make him a pegasus or unicorn. Obviously, an alicorn with black magic would not be able to fit in, in a standard RP. His design; Instead of giving him a design that is supposed to look appealing, I gave him one that was specifically meant to give the impression he's sickly. While I think it does it's job, it might a little too over the top, since I think he looks like some emo character or something. He used to look even worse, if you can believe that. Where does he stand when it comes to being an alicorn?; He's not god like or anything, I can tell you that. He's more like Cadence and Twilight, except obviously less powerful and not royalty. Umbra, on the other hand, is a bit more powerful but still not on Celestia or Luna levels, but he would stll be a challenge. Living in Ponyville; There are a lot of alicorn characters out there who apparently live normal lives, and you wouldn't be blamed if you said Pale Heart was one of them. Well, in his story, he struggles trying to retain a normal life in Ponyville, and eventually has to flee with the friends he's accumulated. Also, on a different subject, no, he doesn't interact at all with the Mane Six. Gallery Note: All art here is drawn by me unless stated otherwise Category:Pony Category:Alicorn Category:Stallion Category:Male Category:OC